For the month of October, I signed up to participate in The DC Ladies Blogtober14 Challenge.  Each day they give a writing prompt and so far, I've been failing miserably at completing the challenge!  Today's challenge was to compile a list of 10 things I'm thankful for.

For as long as I've been celebrating Thanksgiving, I don't think I've really sat down and thought about all the things that I'm thankful for.  So, I thought this would make a great post!

TEN THINGS I'M THANKFUL FOR

#10 - A flexible career
I'm thankful that I've been able to work only part-time as an optometrist.  I may not be getting rich by only working on the weekends, but it allows me to be home with my kids during the week.  I love that my job is flexible and that I work only on the days that I tell them I'm available to work.  They even allow me breaks to have the baby come to the office to nurse!

DISCLOSURE: I received free products from Crowdtap in order to throw a #SkintimateHappyLegs party.  All opinions are my own.

I've been shaving my legs for a long time.  Yikes, now that I think about it, it's been probably about 20 years!  (Ugh, I'm getting old!)  For as long as I can remember, I've almost always used Skintimate Shave Gel when I shaved. Yes, I might have purchased some other brands from time to time, but I've always gone back to Skintimate.

Recently, I had to opportunity to share my love of Skintimate and host a #SkintimateHappyLegs Party.  I was sent a pretty nice kit that included:

• 10 trial size bottles of Skintimate Shave Gel in Raspberry Rain
• 10 Schick Quattro for Women Razors
• 1 Sea Salt Scrub
• 1 Hand and Body Lotion
• 1 Sinful Colors Nail Polish 
• 10 Toe Separators

I was really looking forward to hosting a spa party with my friends!

DISCLOSURE:  I have no relationship with any companies or brands mentioned in this post.  All opinions are my own.

I'm pretty late posting about this, but I did want to share about the party I threw for my oldest daughter and youngest son.  My daughter turned 10 in August and lately she's been obsessed with Monster High and Ever After High.  She has the books, the dolls, the movies, clothes -- they're her favorite thing right now.   Because it was hard to find any Ever After High party things and because I just wasn't feeling crafty enough to make some, I went with a Monster High theme for her.

My youngest son turned 4 in mid September.  But, because no one was going to be around in September to attend a party for him, I had to combine his party with his sister's.  One of the things he loves right now is Angry Birds.  His older sister and brother introduced him to one of the Angry Birds apps that they play on their tablets.  Since then, he loves everything Angry Birds.  He'll even ask to watch the Angry Birds channel on our Roku.

I spent a lot of time on Pinterest, looking for party ideas.  I wanted the decorations and food and activities to all go along with the Monster High and Angry Birds themes.  But, as always, I was too ambitious and ended up not making a lot of the things I wanted to make.

It's fall and apple picking season is here!  When we go, we usually end up getting more apples than we can eat.  Here's a great recipe to use up some of those apples!

The recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Piece of Cake by Camilla V. Saulsbury.  The recipes in the book all use one bowl and it makes it easy to whip up something yummy with minimal fuss.

This cake is a family favorite and I hope you enjoy it too!

DISCLOSURE:  I received free products from Crowdtap to facilitate this post. All opinions are my own.

Other than when I'm out running errands or picking kids up from school and with me working practically every weekend, I haven't had the chance to really get out of the house.  It's been so long since the last time I went out to dinner with girlfriends or did anything with friends.  Every time I try to set something up, either no one's available when I'm free or something comes up and we have to cancel.

Recently, I was chosen by Crowdtap to host a Sweet'N Low Girls Night In.  I thought this would be a perfect alternative to going out with friends.  They could all come over for dinner and drinks and we could rent something from Redbox!  It would be a fun way to catch up with everybody and not have to deal with driving somewhere.